Hungarian premier Viktor Orban on Friday denounced threatened EU sanctions over the country's deteriorating rights situation and again accused Budapest-born US financier George Soros of pulling the strings in Brussels

Horst Mahler, an 81-year-old far-right extremist wanted by police in his native Germany, was arrested in the western Hungarian city of Sopron on Monday. Last week, Mahler publicly expressed his hope that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán would grant him political asylum.